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Monday, November 30, 2009

Sunday, November 29, 2009

I had one of these briefly while still in high school. It was slightly earlier than this 1951 model. Mine was about ten years old at the time and generally the subject of jokes, including a feature in the April Fools edition of the student newspaper. In fact, the Hudson had a ground-breaking design that was soon followed by the big auto makers. The car's good handling, light weight, and efficient engine allowed it to capture numerous racing titles.

The camera is the Soviet-era Fed-1g with the collapsible F2 50mm lens, also a ground-breaking design originating in Germany and improved upon by the Reds.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Thursday, November 19, 2009

My neighbor loaned me her father's Sears KS Super outfit. The camera is a late '80s Pentax K-mount slr made by Ricoh. I was initially leery of the lack of manual shutter adjustment, but I quickly got used to shooting the camera, and the auto-exposure worked well. The 50mm normal lens was very sharp, and the kit also contained a 135 and a zoom. Seems like a nice setup for zoo shooting.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Saturday, November 14, 2009

I've had several fine cameras that I just haven't been able to connect with. One of those was the Minolta Autocord. There was nothing in particular that rubbed me the wrong way about the camera, and the lens was probably as good as any ever put on a twin lens reflex. I think maybe its arrival just coincided with a low point in my creative efforts. I ran a few rolls of film through the camera, and then it just sat on a shelf for a few months. I finally sent it off to a guy in Israel who had the itch for an Autocord.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

While I waited to see my dentist last Tuesday, I browsed through Forever New Mexico, a book of vintage photos edited by Arnold Vigil. Over the Table of Contents was the photo below. The caption read: "A woman snaps a picture of another woman next to a hogan on the Navajo Nation in western New Mexico. Date and photographer unknown, New Mexico Magazine Archival Collection."

The camera looked like an Argus rangefinder model from the '30s or '40s. Midway through the book is another picture of what looks to be the same camera, though it is in the hands of a different woman, portrayed as she "snaps a picture at the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial." It clearly is an Argus rangefinder, either a C2 or C3 model. The (actual) photographer and date of the picture are again unknown.

Further on in the book is a much older photo in which one of the figures is cradling a Kodak No.3A folder, a camera dating from 1910-1914 that used 122 film and produced 3.25 in. x 5.5 in. negatives. The caption reads: "Agapito Pino photographs his mother washing clothes at San Ildefonso Pueblo sometime in the 1920s. Photographer unknown, courtesy of Museum of New Mexico (Negative No. 3740)."

I did a search on the name of the fellow with the old Kodak and turned up a 1939 picture of an "Agapito Pino", described as a "San Ildefonzo Indian Clown Dancer". It seems quite likely it is the same fellow ten or fifteen years along. The photographer who made the picture of the later Agapito was Burton Frasher, who produced tens of thousands of postcard photos during the first half of the Twentieth Century all over the Southwest. The Frasher Postcard Collection is housed at the Pomona Public Library.

All the pictures have a staged look, but they are still rather charming, I think, and I was very pleased with this unexpected find. It was certainly one of my better experiences in a dentist's office.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

I told my wife recently that, besides being a record-setting pioneer pilot, Amelia Earhart had also been a social worker and a photographer. She didn't believe me. It's all true though. On her last flight, she was carrying along a Kodak Duo Six-20, though it was a slightly earlier model than the one used to make the above photos.

Sunday, November 01, 2009

The B-52 and the B-49 at The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque.

I've photographed these old planes many times; this is the first time with my centenarian Kodak, the 1-A Special with the Rapid Rectilinear lens. It is always fun to get nice images from very old cameras, but on this occasion the camera also represented a practical choice given the subject. The long lens provides a nice perspective, and the semi-panoramic format is well suited to these big bombers. The exposures were 1/50 sec. at f45 on Fuji Neopan 400.

About Me

I spend much of my time making photographs, usually with old film cameras. A move to Albuquerque at the beginning of 2008 has given my photo work more of an urban character.
Contact: mike dot connealy at gmail dot com.